New York, 2001 |
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The Metropolitan
Museum |
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The Met on a Saturday. I roam my usual galleries, once again visiting the
Medievalists and the Monets, passing the writhing Rodins, scanning the Bruegal exhibit.
I’d always roamed here midweek in midwinter, when I felt like I had the place to
myself. But today it is as crowded as the D’Orsay. I think I’ve hit my
saturation point now of crowds, and my tolerance is gone, vaporized. So many of the galleries have donor’s names in them it seems like the closing credits of All Things Considered. At the Lila Acheson Wallace room I entered the Modern wing, and had the galleries to myself. Clifford Still is an acquired taste, not for the masses, so I sat alone and absorbed the sounds in the paintings, the crackling sensation they brought out in me. Another wall had three Rothkos together, his still and quietly harmonic canvases. Nearly thirty years ago this group of Abstract Expressionist painters taught me the power and sensuous enjoyment paint on canvas can have, and the sensation echoes still. My favorite Motherwell was there—Elegy for the Spanish Republic—the postcard of which decorated my dorm room desk for years. As far as I’m concerned, this is the pinnacle of American art of the 20th Century. |
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